


The Cradle Endlessly Rocking

by snafumoofins



Category: Preacher (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt, Loss of Child, Miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 15:06:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7645966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snafumoofins/pseuds/snafumoofins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tulip and Jesse handle the loss of their child differently, but they never speak about it again until two years later in Annville. (spoilers from the finale).</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cradle Endlessly Rocking

**Author's Note:**

> Just a warning that this fic does mention and talk about miscarriage. 
> 
> If you have any prompts, hit me up at gxnsandtxlips.tumblr.com

It only seemed right that she’d lose their child in the back of a Chinese restaurant. 

He’d been carrying her at this point, while she brokenly repeated: “ _The baby...The baby._ ” 

In those moments, he vowed that he would never hear Tulip O’Hare’s voice go so soft and broken again. _But little would he know._

Jesse didn’t even have to use the gun as he slammed through the back door. One look at the rage on his face and the anguish on hers was enough to send the few men and women working scrambling for the exit. 

As she lay against his chest, his legs on either side of her trembling body, Tulip hummed, like she’d been doing in the car ever since they found out she was pregnant. 

“ _Hu...Hush little baby...don’t say a word...mama’s gonna...buy you a...m-maw...kingbird..._ ” her voice cut off, and Jesse saw a shift in her face. Her brow's knit together, lips pressed in a hard line as she slowly nodded her head.

Jesse hadn’t cried since the day his daddy told him to stop, but now, he felt foreign, wet  trickles down his cheek as he sat there, listening to Tulip unleash a raw, anguished scream as blood pooled beneath them. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

She didn’t sing lullabies after that, she couldn’t even stand to see children after that. They left the country, tried Mexico for awhile. Jesse thought it might help her forget. She didn’t, though. Each time they’d see a family in the street, she’d take her hand from his and hug her arms around herself, get that hollow look in her eyes. 

When a young girl had approached them, asking if they wanted to buy some fruit, Tulip had stood there, shaking so hard that her purse slipped from her shoulder. 

He felt it too, but he had to be there for her, he had to try and take as much of the weight off her shoulders. Fuck knows he'd dream of those tiny little fingers wrapped around his, though, of a little girl with toffee colored skin and a smile as pretty as her mama's.

They didn’t touch each other anymore. 

The one time they tried sex, she’d shoved him off, rolled over and said nothing to him the rest of the night. 

Sometimes he’d find her in the store, holding baby clothes in her hand, stroking her fingers along the fabric. 

At some point, however, things twisted. He watched her as she paced back and forth in their hotel room, thinking out loud. “ _Who would know where he is? Where should we start? I wanna cut his balls off and feed them to him. I wanna friggin’...I wanna burn him alive, but not enough to kill him. We should keep him alive for a few days”_

It scared him, a little, how obsessed she became with revenge. She didn’t seem to notice him anymore, she told him she wanted to go back to Texas, to Dallas, try and start from there. 

The next morning, he was gone. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Sometimes, she didn’t think Jesse Custer even remembered their child. 

They never spoke about it at all. Not one fucking single conversation. 

Jesse insisted they go to Mexico, said it’d be better for them there, safer, but she hardly even cared. For awhile, she felt nothing but numb. She saw her child in the face of each child in the street, sometimes, she still felt like it was inside of her. 

Jesse fell into silence, withdrew from her. They didn’t touch each other anymore. Only tried to fuck once, but it hurt her too much in the end, hurt her heart too much. She felt sick. 

Tulip left him during the nights, sometimes. She smoked outside of the hotel until she forgot the cigarette and only remembered it when it was singing into her fingers. It was too oppressing to be in that hotel room with Jesse, where silence hung as heavy as a wet blanket between them. 

She wanted to grab him by the face, sometimes, scream: “ _WE LOST OUR BABY, OUR BABY, JESSE. IT’S GONE WE LOST IT. PLEASE, TELL ME YOU’RE SAD TOO, PLEASE, TELL ME YOU HURT TOO,_ ” but she never does.

She remembered the one night, before it'd happened, he lay his head against her stomach, lost in thought. 

_“If you’re hearing anything, it’s not the baby, it’s the chili dog I ate. Baby ain’t even as big as a pea pod, Jesse.”  
_

_“What should we name it?”  
_

She knew he wouldn’t want to name it after anyone in his family. Fuck knows they did a number on him, but.. _.”What was your mama’s name again, Jesse?”  
_

_“...Christina.”  
_

_“There you go. Christina for a girl, Chris for a boy. Ain’t that simple?”_

Now, she truly wondered if he ever cared about that baby. 

At one point, finally, her grieving was done. Carlos needed to pay. _Someone_ had to pay. 

And so she tried to get Jesse into it, thought that maybe he’d finally show some emotion, show some damned _want_  to avenge their baby, but he never did. 

He just watched her with those sad eyes, told her:  _“I don’t wanna talk about this right now, Tulip.”_

She told him she wanted to go to Dallas. Thought it would be the best place to get a footing in chasing him down. 

The next morning, she woke alone. 

She trashed the entire goddamn room, burst out the door and nearly cried when she saw the one fucking constant in her life: her chevelle. 

Fuck Jesse Custer. Fuck him if he thought he could just run away from the goddamned truth. 

She’d take some time, let him think he really got away from her, but she’d come back. 

Fuck, she’d come back like a tidal wave. 

_Someone had to fucking pay._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“ _No matter what we do that baby ain’t comin’ back._ ” 

She wondered if things would’ve been different, if he’d said that to her in those silent days in their hotel in Mexico. Maybe she would’ve snapped out of it, maybe they would’ve actually talked about the loss. 

It hurt, though. All she could do was lean against that doorframe, watch him rifle through Betsy and Donnie’s drawers. 

 _Fuck_ , they were pathetic. Why did they refuse to communicate? They were in love back then, too, weren’t they? They could talk about their daddies and the horrible shit their families did, but a fucking baby was the end. 

She felt horribly raw, exposed, and she couldn’t help but feel unease when Jesse pointed his oven-mitt clad gun down at Carlos. 

He was doing this _for her_. 

Nobody did things like this for her, nobody ever gave a shit about her before the day she met Jesse Custer. 

This whole time he prattled on about “ _God_ ” and letting that shithead deal with Carlos, but here he was, throwing every single word he’d said under the rug. 

For her. 

And so she pressed herself to him, gripped his arms, and when she exhaled, she felt the weight shift away, felt her baby give a final “goodbye.” When she inhaled, all she could smell was Jesse. He was here. Holding her. _Her_  Jesse Custer. 

The single constant. The only man she’d ever need. 

And suddenly, she’d felt like those two years of silence and those days without a single word about their baby faded. The conversation between them in that hug, in the pain in their voices, it was enough for her. 


End file.
